SUNY Oswego researchers share grant to monitor fish for pollutants

OSWEGO — SUNY Oswego will use a $1.5 million share of a federal grant in a partnership that documents declines in older chemical pollutants in the Great Lakes.

The school’s Environmental Research Center is using the funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the initiative. 

SUNY Oswego is working with Clarkson University and SUNY Fredonia to monitor persistent toxic chemicals, such as PCBs, dioxins, furans, and other legacy pollutants, the school said in a news release issued Nov. 4.

SUNY Oswego’s $1.5 million grant is part of a $6.5 million EPA grant, the third in a series of five-year research grants for the partnership.

Clarkson is the lead institution on the grant program, which is dubbed, “Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program: Expanding the Boundaries.”

The schools involved are working to expand the effort to identify “emerging” chemical threats.

“Most legacy chemical compounds show significant decreases in water, atmosphere, fish and fish eggs,” James Pagano, director of the Environmental Research Center, said in the news release. “All the good work of the EPA, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the many state agencies have led to significant reductions in those chemicals.”

The new effort aims, in part, to expand the list of target chemicals and to identify new threats before they become potential health problems for fish, other lake inhabitants, and the people in the Great Lakes region who consume them.

A team of Clarkson scientists carries the “brunt of responsibility” for emerging-threat surveillance. 

At the same time, Hannah Valentino, a SUNY Oswego senior majoring in biochemistry, is working on a capstone project to measure levels in Great Lakes fish of a relatively new class of flame retardants called organophosphates. 

“I’m trying to track to see if these compounds are getting into the environment, and whether their presence is rising to alarming levels of concern,” Valentino said.

Pagano is supervising Valentino on the project, SUNY Oswego said.

Many of the older flame retardants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), have been banned for at least a decade. 

The Environmental Research Center has found that their presence in Great Lakes fish specimens is decreasing over time. But PBDEs still “show up” in fish-consumption advisories that state agencies issue, Pagano noted.

Organophosphates have replaced PBDEs in manufacturing over the last 20 years, SUNY Oswego said. 

They are “widely” used in children’s clothing, upholstered furniture, and other potentially flammable consumer goods. 

“The harm potential is not as well understood,” Pagano said. “One part of the (research partnership’s) program is to determine toxicity of compounds.”

Standards

Launched in 1980, the Great Lakes Fish Monitoring Program seeks to address concerns over the declining health of the lakes. The scientists in the Clarkson-Oswego-Fredonia partnership began working together on smaller projects in the mid-1990s, Pagano said. 

The EPA awarded a “major” grant to the Clarkson-led partnership in 2006 and again in 2011, according to SUNY Oswego.

Pagano credited the new grant to the partnership’s “consistent, on-time delivery of high-quality” data, thanks to a “well-trained staff and state-of-the-art equipment” such as gas chromatographs, high-resolution mass spectrometers, and ultra-cold freezers for storage of fish specimens.

Andrew Garner, research associate, has primary responsibility for preparation of tissue samples in the Environmental Research Center. Garner has worked with Jesse Mazur, a junior chemistry major, since the summer. 

“We work to keep samples from getting contaminated,” Mazur said.

Pagano endorsed the value for student scientists, saying the Environmental Research Center’s “rigorous” standards make for work that is “tedious, complicated and difficult — but if you can do it, you’re on your way to being a skilled chemist.”